Tate Modern as a playground

German artist Carsten Holler has been commissioned to create this new work, entitled Test Site, for the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, part of the Unilever Series. Test Site consists of 5 giant spiralling slides, linking the upper galleries with the Hall!

“Carsten Holler has called his work Test Site as it relates to his wider interest in the application of slides as a means of human transportation and his exploration of how participants might be stimulated. This installation is, in part, an open experiment into the reception of slides by the public and the effect they have on those who use them” (source: press release)

I got to experience the work of Carsten in the form of Frisbeehouse (Tate 2000) and a slide in Berlin. I’m really pleased to see his work on such a scale.

“The slides changed the daily routine of those who experienced them, altering their modes of traveling and their conception of social appropriateness. In the midst of a public space, traveling down a slide like a child in a playground, one loses all sense of control, exactly what one fears in a collective environment” (source: snow show).

Where are the slides now? Who acquired them and are they open to the public?are they still in the uk? as basically they are a dry version of the flumes you find at leisure centres up and down the country.